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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27845548">and if we're still living</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnari/pseuds/onnari'>onnari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles/Golden Deer Joint Route, Injury, Life-Affirming Sex, War Phase</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:35:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,664</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27845548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnari/pseuds/onnari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Edelgard and Claude escape certain death on the Tailtean Plains and remind each other they are still alive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and if we're still living</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They meet again on the Tailtean Plains. Not on opposing sides, but a joint one, with multiple fronts. Locked in battle with Rhea’s remaining forces and the splintered factions still committed to the Church of Seiros. </p>
<p>Fighting to remake the world. </p>
<p>Instead, it seems to end in a stroke of light.</p>
<p>Claude descends to pull Edelgard back from the brink, and the world goes slanted, his wyvern careening sideways to avoid the onslaught of violence. The beast’s roar lost to the tremor of the earth and sky and their own bodies, hurtling away from the light and then a sweeping wave of smoke that cannot be overrun.</p>
<p>Maha works her wings ferociously, but they lose their altitude as the forest rises up from the earth to greet them, swallowing them whole.</p>
<p>Their bones feel the impact of the landing, Edelgard holding tight to Claude. Already has him in her arms as she pushes off the beast’s back and carries him off on unsteady legs. Legs still steadier than his own—his left calf slick with blood. </p>
<p>Instinct draws her further into the forest’s reach. Into the tangle of a thicket, mostly obscured, even from what is left of the sun.</p>
<p>There are no words at first, just the shock of the encounter. The rush of blood bringing pain and dizziness all at once as Edelgard kneels over him, propping him up against a tree.</p>
<p>Claude looks to her and gets his first proper view of the damage she has also sustained in battle. Tries to rise up only for Edelgard to push him back down.</p>
<p>“It’s just a head wound,” she tells him, but he can see the way she winces around the words, face framed by her hair that is spooling loose. Her headpiece smashed over her left temple, the pieces sunken into her skin and hairline.</p>
<p>“Don’t drift off,” he says, tracking the blood as it trails the length of her face, dripping off her chin and dampening the earth. </p>
<p>“With you around?” she quips, attempting a smile but only offering up something as shaky as it is sharp. A blade held in an untested hand. “Impossible.”</p>
<p>He cannot get a better look at her then, Edelgard pulling away to hover over his leg and tearing at the armored fabric of his pants to make an assessment of the damage a lance has done. Curses at what she finds.</p>
<p>“Don’t put weight on this.”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t planning on it.” His own smile is lopsided, but equally trying. “Was hoping you’d just carry me everywhere.”</p>
<p>Outside the thicket, Maha growls low in her throat, and with a sudden urgency she all but destroys their greater cover—bending and overturning saplings and branches to get right at Claude.</p>
<p>Her maw opens wide, rows and rows of teeth settling around Claude’s neck as she pulls him from side to side. A protective gesture but one that cannot sit right with Edelgard, not so soon after looking upon death.</p>
<p>Claude pats the beast’s shoulder, encouraging her to disengage. Maha pulls away, wings tucked close and slightly off balance, and Claude’s eyes dart to the injury she is nursing as well. The tip of her forewing signed and twisted in on itself. He works to untangle it until Maha snarls, throwing him off.</p>
<p>“You need to douse that, friend.” He lifts his head, straining his ears. “Is there a stream nearby?”</p>
<p>Edelgard’s ears are no great help, the world still ringing out, but she might have spied one on the way down—even through the smoke that hovers like a storm cloud above the treeline.</p>
<p>Claude urges the wyvern on to get her to look after herself. When she does not move, Edelgard uncaps the canteen secured to Maha’s harness, spurring her on to bring back some water and whatever prey she might catch.</p>
<p>Reluctantly, Maha recedes, the trees slowly standing back to full attention, enclosing them once more, and Edelgard wastes no time, reaching for Claude. Pulls aside his cape and sash and unbuttons his coat until she can gain access to his chest and what he carries upon him at all times. Last resorts, both to harm and to heal.</p>
<p>It’s the medicinal alcohol she removes, turning to his open wound. </p>
<p>Claude speaks what runs through both their minds, attempting a distraction. “Those Who Slither…” </p>
<p>“In the Dark,” Edelgard finishes in agreement when he cries out, but it is not nearly enough of an answer for the destruction wrought or its staggering repercussions. The difficulty of facing down more than one opponent at a time.</p>
<p>Edelgard’s face falls into shadow, grasping for the here and now. Tears off a strip of her cape to staunch the flow of Claude’s blood.</p>
<p>“Come here,” he hisses through his teeth as she wrenches it tight. Holds his arms out to her until she settles within their embrace, sitting upon his lap. From her hands he takes the alcohol, shaking off his gloves before more gingerly tending to her own injury.</p>
<p>Edelgard takes him in as he bites his lip in anticipation of the pain he causes her. Watches his face pull taut in distress, frustrated at his own helplessness in extracting the headpiece’s fragments. </p>
<p>Her hands find his shoulders, clinging to the warmth of him and the bare skin she’s uncovered. His body responsive to the touch even as he tries to mouth off something calming for her. </p>
<p>The world may be uncertain, but they, at least, are not.</p>
<p>There is blood on Edelgard’s lips, fallen from her temple. The tang of metal even away from the fighting, weapons fallen aside.</p>
<p>He tastes it when she surges towards him. Strives to hold her steady, but there is nothing steady about them now. Their vision tilts anew with the slant of their heads, finding their way together again. Their kisses deep and searching, pressing close to keep out the dread that looms as insistently as the smoke.</p>
<p>It is not close enough. They separate only to pull aside what keeps them apart, and there is little work to do from there, already worked up by the precariousness of the moment and each other. So near after so many days spent at a distance. Reunited under the most harrowing of circumstances.</p>
<p>Edelgard does not take her time, the first stretch the most visceral, and Claude goes slack jawed and malleable underneath her, letting her arrange him to her satisfaction. Finding an angle that works as she takes him again.</p>
<p>When he rallies it is with his mouth, kissing the underside of her jaw, the fullness of her lips, the hollow of her neck. Speaks her name into her ear like it’s one of his secrets. One to share, just between the two of them. She listens for the cadence, the way it falls apart on just the single syllable. “El—”</p>
<p>She tightens around him at just the sound. Sets a faster pace just to hear it again, her own breath turning heavy. Panting. </p>
<p>He pulls away, grasping her face. “Hey,” he says. “Breathe. Don’t get lightheaded.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m breathing,” she proves, just from the words, then draws him in for another kiss. This one with too much teeth from what goes unsaid between them.</p>
<p>Again, he breaks away. Dips down to her pulse point and savors its thrum enough to make her groan, then moves on to the spot that never fails to make her gasp in laughter.</p>
<p>Tears find her lashes, shaken by the sensation and emotion in spite of herself, and her hand returns to his chest. Splays over the scar that stretches across his heart and feels it pound. Leans closer and discerns the flush of his face, blood still flowing intently.</p>
<p>She breathes deep, matching the rise and fall of his chest until she bears down with more force, a better angle.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he says, head striking back against the tree trunk, and Edelgard feels the familiar satisfaction of reducing him to so few words. His hands, though, are everywhere, running over the muscles of her back, the dip of her waist. Gripping her low across the hips as he drags her back down to meet him, then finally arrives at the apex of her thighs, swallowing her cry.</p>
<p>Staving off dizziness, she rises up and slides a forearm behind his head to steady herself. Softens the blow as his head falls back again, catching her eye as his thumb works her with greater pressure, nothing teasing about him now.</p>
<p>She fights to keep her eyes open, returning his avid gaze. Pushes aside everything but the feeling she is chasing, and him not far behind, all frenetic energy as he tries to match her movement for movement. </p>
<p>She finds her words only to tell him what she wants, and he obliges, giving her more, rather than less, a little desperate to get her there as they climb higher together. He tenses, lost to the heat and hold of her, and it’s her undoing that is his own, pleasure shuddering through them as they crash back down. </p>
<p>Her hands drift into his hair, his own cradling her head as they come together for one more kiss, lingering and uncoordinated until the forest stirs into tentative motion around them. The world regrouping as they do. </p>
<p>A hare raising its head through the undergrowth. Two birds calling out to one another. Maha’s distant rumble that startles a deer out of hiding.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Claude says, reassurance meant for them both. Their hearts still racing but the haze receding. He sweeps his hand through the fallen strands of her hair, ignoring the pain that comes back into sharper focus. “We’re okay.”</p>
<p>Edelgard rests in the crook of his shoulder and shivers with him as a breeze cuts a path through the trees. A thousand thoughts and concerns left to consider. So much more to accomplish, but possible still.</p>
<p>“Alive,” she answers. The rest will come as it always does when they are together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just think it’s neat when both Edelgard and Claude are alive and like, in their feelings about it.</p>
<p>Title taken from Ryn Weaver's Here is Home.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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